


downtown the young ones are growing (kids in america)

by bihenry



Category: Henry Danger (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Neglect, Implied abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, street kid violence abound, where i say fuck canon, yall say grittier i say yes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bihenry/pseuds/bihenry
Summary: the kids are let go just about an hour and a lecture later. it’s barley more than a wag of their finger but that’s how it goes. they have more important things to  worry about like the power grid being tampered with and the imagine of pink graffiti being plastered on anything that has to do with law enforcement. what he doesn't expect the two kids to break his fucking sunroof.





	downtown the young ones are growing (kids in america)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my attempt at a grittier, more high stake version of hd largely based on titans (2018). mentions of violence, abuse and neglect are all around. nothing too deep, i think, and leaves more to the imagination. more tags to be added, more chapters to be added than the original 5 i have planned.
> 
> i don't really follow canon in this. very much au. ray will have more present family, as mentioned in this chapter but like .. not too present lmao
> 
> chapter title from 'don't mind me' by walking on cars, work title 'kids in america' covered by the foo fighters,

it starts the way many things do … with an atom. 

ray’s dad is a scientist. he’d known that since he could know just about anything, and it’s not like it’s a secret in the city of swellview. 

the city that’s made the top dangerous cities top five for the past decade, if not longer, if ray’s memory serves. quietly, no one assumes anything is pure and innocent within the streets filled with crime and trade. it’s partially why ray’s father doesn’t let him leave. not like the other kids ; he’d never sat in a classroom, never walked in the park holding his mothers hand and even a god damn seesaw was off limits. it’s not like he’d had any friends to sit on the other side. it’d always been that way ; ray alone, left to his own devices unless he’s summoned for help with his fathers experiments. there’d always been an off balance with him ; no matter what it was, ray was always on the bottom of the totem pole. he never got what he deserved. 

his dad always used to get ‘we get what we deserve and deserve what we get’. it was sound logic, for a guy who hadn’t even slept in the same bed with his wife for a year and a half. and with as smart as his father is, it’d be a given he may understand the word.

john manchester is known for three things ; helping superheroes stop crime in the city, his wealth and his impeccable science skills. 

ray knows tree things. he hasn’t seen his mom and dad share a genuine smile in months. his father doesn’t like to take the word no for an answer. and lastly, 

his father is not a nice man.

and ray is still emotional about a god damn seesaw.

* * *

  
  


it ends with a scream and shattering glass. 

he doesn’t hear the shots, the ear piercing noises down the hall and to the right, not in time. not in time to do anything of importance. not in time to save them.

and he knows his dad would chide him for crying on the phone with the 911 operator, but what else is a child supposed to do? 

even the gloved hand of the police officer is a shock to him, ray shaking it off and not even bothering to wear a coat when his aunt arrives at the scene. it’s december, cold months never seemed to bother him ( _how can they when you barely step foot into the sunlight?_ ), and he barely registers the wind chill and snowflakes hitting his skin as a officer attempts to lead him away from the scene, but his feet stay firmly planted even when they’re soaking wet from standing in the mounds of pent up snow.

maybe it was teen angst. maybe it was an attempt to gain control for once, to get some leverage. to get something other than a cold hard stare from his father.

he just wishes ‘i hate you’ never came out of his mouth.

he wishes it wasn’t the last thing his dad heard him say.

_ ihateyouihateyouihateyou. _

* * *

  
  


what’s next is a move.

no, not out of swellview but in with his aunt. his aunt is much kinder, much more in tune with her emotions than what his father had. it’s hard to tell how they were even related simply by that aspect alone. she’s all love and smiles and hugs and warm baked cookies with a side of breakfast pancakes every morning before she pulls out the porsche to bring her nephew to his fancy private school his father would scrunch his nose at in disgust ( _‘you got a scholarship, ray! how exciting!’_ ), leaving ray to the wolves of rich kid problems. 

he hates it.

instead, it’s not hard to see why most kids here like it: the cliques are more apparent than he ever thought they could be, seated at lunch table and the aura of the top dogs looking down at everyone else can be felt like a chill up his spine.

so, instead, he spends time in the state of the art lab system they have. it’s not like he isn’t his fathers son. 

he builds and he explores in the confines of the lab, white walls and safety goggles and chemicals and textbooks with formulas that only make sense in his mind.

he loves it. 

and eventually, it starts to consume him. all day and all night, chemical burns on his skin and bags under his eyes apparent. his aunt tries, she really does, but the day he turns 18 he’s out the door and using the trust fund ( _'imagine how much good you could do with that money!'_ ) that’d been accumulating since he was born. john was a smart man. he wasn’t going to have his son be a moocher.

and his aunt wasn’t wrong. he was going to do some good in the world.

it just might not be that black and white.

* * *

  
  


there’s street kids abound in swellview. of course there is -- for the amount of crime, there’s got to be people in the city to do crime. even if they are little people.

that’s exactly who his partner pulls into the interrogation room. ray is expecting two kids, probably pulled into the station for a beyond scared straight concept.

what he isn’t expecting is for one of them looking a little worse for wear, blood on his face and clothes torn and dirty like they haven’t been washed in a year. the curly headed kid beside him isn’t all that much better, but he wouldn’t get stopped in a Walmart and asked if he was okay. he looks somewhat presentable.

it’s apparent who is the mastermind. at least that’s what is seems.

“do you know why you’re in here today, boys?”

blank stares and he’s not surprised. in the past ten years he’d been a detective, he’d had to use a multitude of ways to get information out of someone. he just doesn’t want to have to do that to kids.

one of them shifts anxiously in their seat. the other has a shit eating grin plastered on his face. two sides of the same coin, ray supposes.

curly speaks first. “b-because we took the car.”

“you’re not supposed to tell them that!” blondie hisses, hushed and startling his friend, frown replacing the grin that was just on his face seconds before.

it keeps everything ray has to keep from laughing at the obvious differences they share, and yet, he can’t shake the idea that it wasn’t simply blondies doing.

he doesn’t push. they got their admission, anyways.

the kids are let go just about an hour and a lecture later. it’s barley more than a wag of their finger but that’s how it goes. they have more important things to worry about like the power grid being tampered with and the imagine of pink graffiti being plastered on anything that has to do with law enforcement. what he doesn't expect the two kids to break his fucking sunroof.

* * *

they're sitting there, on his couch ( his brand new fucking couch ),soaking wet from the thunderstorm with nothing more than a torn apart backpack on their backs. 

"aw, shit." says blondie as thunder crackles outside --- the rain hadn't come down this hard in months, and of course this was the night two hooligans decided to try and break into his house. how did they even get past the security?

shit is right.

**Author's Note:**

> send me stuff at henryshart on tumblr! be nice i'm baby


End file.
